The UK government’s announcement late last week that it had completed its review of the Criminal Market Abuse Regime leaves market players none the wiser about what comes next.

The statement says that the review carried out by the Treasury and the FCA “has identified a number of areas where the government believes it would be appropriate to update the criminal regime”, and says secondary legislation will be laid down this year.

The review is part of a wider exercise, the Future Regulatory Framework review (FRF), that was set up to consider how the regulatory framework for financial services should adapt now the UK has left the European Union. The general approach is set out in the Building a Smarter Financial Services Framework and as part of that framework, the Market Abuse Regulation is to be repealed. A timetable for this has yet to be set.

No departure

Rob Mason, director of regulatory intelligence at Global Relay (our parent company) predicts that “any changes (civil and criminal) will just be better aligned with each other, and will not materially depart from the prevailing European position”.

He reckons “an update was overdue as this was introduced in the early nineties” and says the move “also acts as a reminder that there is a credible deterrent to potential abusers”. He sees “some potential to replace the civil (pan-European) market abuse regime with UK specific laws” but notes that “At the point of Brexit there was some intention to update MAR but that was trumped by more pressing Treasury issues”.

When the proposals are eventually set out, Mason says that crypto could well be among a number of additional areas covered.